FORMER Cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clare Short put Tony Blair on the spot over weapons of mass destruction.

FORMER Cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clare Short today put Tony Blair on the spot over weapons of mass destruction.

The two, who resigned over the conflict, said they were both told by MI6 in the run-up to the war with Iraq that Saddam Husseins's weapons did not pose any immediate threat.

Ms Short, giving evidence to the opening session of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into the use of intelligence in the war, said she had been told by MI6 that while the work of weapons scientists was being kept hidden by the Iraqis, "the risk of use was less".

Mr Cook said his resignation speech - when he claimed Iraq probably had no weapons of mass destruction in terms of "a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic target" - had reflected "almost word for word" a briefing he received from MI6, which is properly known as the Secret Intelligence Service.

Briefed

Mr Cook said he had no regular access to intelligence material after he left the Foreign Office in 2001 to become Leader of the Commons, but he, with other Cabinet ministers, was briefed individually by SIS before the war.

Ms Short repeated her accusation that Mr Blair had "pre-committed" Britain to war, despite his claim to have been working for a resolution to the crisis through the United Nations.

She said that, as International Development Secretary, she did have access to intelligence and had seen all the material on Iraq, but only after she had "made a fuss".

She said that No 10 had tried to prevent her seeing the material and she was given access only after she took up the issue with Mr Blair.

She said MI6 believed that Iraqi scientists were still working on chemical and biological weapons programmes - but the public was led to believe that Saddam had weapons ready to use.

Exaggeration

"I think that is where the falsity lies," she said. "The exaggeration of immediacy means you cannot do things properly and action has to be immediate."

She said that when she had asked Defence Intelligence Staff about the likelihood of a chemical or biological attack, she was told: "There is a risk. It was not thought to be very high, but it was definitely there".

AN American senator has urged the CIA to release information which he said would prove the US withheld key information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from UN inspectors.

Democrat Carl Levin has said for months that CIA director George Tenet's open statements about how much intelligence was shared with inspectors contradicted classified information.